Saturday, June 30, 2012

Davis' email begins: "Implicit in Benjamin Franklin's fabled response
at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention was a dire warning:
That the Republic would one day devolve into tyranny unless we the
people prevented it."

It goes on to characterize Obama's election as the end point of a
"100-year progressive trek to tyranny" before questioning whether a good
old-fashioned uprising would be the best means to overturn the
president's signature domestic policy. The key paragraph:

If government can mandate that I pay for something I don't
want, then what is beyond its power? If the Supreme Court's decision
Thursday paves the way for unprecedented intrusion into personal
decisions, then has the Republic all but ceased to exist? If so, then is
armed rebellion today justified?

Keep talking like that and the American people are going to realize the level of nutcasiness that is inherent in the Tea Party, the group that wants to get Mitt Romney elected so he can rubber-stamp the agenda of John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and Jim DeMint.

Japan's nine nuclear power utilities
have rejected calls from some of their shareholders to reduce or even
eliminate the use of nuclear energy. Tokyo Electric Power Co's (Tepco's)
shareholders approved a ¥1 trillion ($12.5 billion) injection of state
funds which effectively nationalizes the company.

The nine utilities each held general shareholders' meetings on 27
June in the respective regions. They all faced numerous questions from
their shareholders about their position on phasing out the use of
nuclear power plants as well as concerns about the resumption of
operations of their reactors. Some shareholders also called for plans
for new reactors to be dropped. However, all shareholder proposals were
voted down at each of the meetings, the Asahi Shimbun.

Some 4500 shareholders attended Tepco's meeting in a gymnasium in
Tokyo, which lasted about five-and-a-half hours. During the meeting,
shareholders voted against a proposal for the company to permanently
shut down its seven-unit Kashiwazaki Kariwa plant in Niigata prefecture,
replacing them with advanced gas-turbine generators. However, the
company is relying on the restart of those reactors to help improve its profitability.

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Talk and talk and more talk, and meanwhile nothing serious gets done.
Take the altered Everglades as a microcosmic example of the globe as a
whole, and you can see what will happen to us if nothing serious gets
done about climate change. I.e., continuing decline.

"The fourth biennial review by the National Research Council says that
while notable progress in the construction of restoration projects has
been made since its last report, those initiatives still have done
little to reverse generations of decline.

"Unless near-term progress is made to improve water quantity
and restore water flow, ecosystem losses will continue, many of which
would require decades to centuries to recover," said William Boggess,
chair of the NRC committee that wrote the report and a professor at
Oregon State University. ... The plan aims to restore natural water flow, but has been stymied by
years of funding shortfalls, legal challenges and political bickering.
The Everglades, meantime, continues to be depleted, now occupying about
half its historical size of 4 million acres. ... "We thought this problem would be fixed," said David Guest, an attorney
for Earthjustice who has spent decades fighting for Everglades
restoration. "In 1994, we were screaming bloody murder that it was going
to take 12 years and here we are 18 years later and we're nowhere near
solving the problem."

"The team estimated there were 284,500 deaths from swine flu in the 12 months from April 2009. But the figure may be as high as 575,400, they said.

Between 250,000 and 500,000 people die of seasonal influenza every year, according to the WHO.
In the flu 2009 season, H1N1 was the "predominant virus", said Dawood.

But comparing the numbers alone did not yield an accurate picture, she
stressed, as 80 percent of swine flu victims were younger than 65, while
the yearly seasonal flu mainly tends to claim older victims.

The researchers said 51 percent of swine flu deaths was estimated to
have occurred in southeast Asia and Africa, which account for 38 percent
of the world's population."

Just imagine if something really communicable gets out there. Like bird flu.

Monday, June 25, 2012

Other than that, good (bad news) op-ed by Neil Wagner. There is so much trending the wrong way, with little legitimate response from national governments (see this), that I am going to renew my call for world government. At this point on time, I think the European governments would welcome a stern guiding hand on their respective economies.

"The multilateral process today is not delivering the urgent action we need," WWF's Jim Leape told AFP in an email.

"International action is in fact important, to galvanize a global
response to these challenges, but it's clear that we need to look to
leadership in other places... that means looking for changes everywhere
-- communities, cities, national governments and companies."

and this:

Observers said the most tangible success was a plan for "Sustainable
Development Goals" to succeed the UN's Millennium Development Goals,
which touch on health, poverty and so on, after they expire in 2015.

In an interview with AFP carried on its Geopolitics blog (http://blogs.afp.com/geopolitics), Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York, said the MDGs had been an important catalyzer -- but for ordinary citizens, not leaders.

"They have been a global call to action that has mobilized millions of
people around the world, as well as informed, nudged or pushed
governments to take seriously the challenges of poverty, hunger and
disease. "They thus teach us a lesson: we cannot rely on the politicians and the diplomats to get this job done."

The movie "Volcano" made a hash of what would happen (or not happen) to human bodies in proximity to red-hot lava. And there's been speculation on what would REALLY happen, not that anyone was stepping to volunteer for this once-in-a-life-ending-time experiment. (Really now, hasn't someone who donated their body to science ever suggested this as a novel form of cremation)? But given that the actual thing wasn't possible, some enterprising researchers decided to toss a trash bag weighing approximately as much as a human into the lava lake at Erta Ale.

I hate to be pessimistic, but I give the Mars Curiosity Lander only about a 30% chance
of landing success, i.e., 3-1 odds against it landing successfully. Oh, I know
that everything has been checked and double-checked, but as the video notes, there
is zero margin for error. Everything -- every component, every sequence, every
element - has to work perfectly. Without any human control or intervention (of
course the events in the sequence happen so fast that intervention would probably
screw things up worse). I know the scientific payoff is big, but this is a
tremendous amount of risk, and the downside is that the public will believe
less in the capabilities of fully robotic exploration of the Solar System if
Curiosity doesn't land safely and operate as designed.

Yet another trend that is heading in the wrong direction fast. And yet another reason for world government, because if we were all under one governing body, then I think the WG would fund an effective cleanup effort. As it is, we are stuck with an orbital tragedy-of-the-commons where anybody with a launch vehicle can get it up there, but doesn't have to have aplan for bringing it back down (which is also a problem for those rare priapism sufferers).

So what exactly are they/we going to do about it? That's still not clear at all.

Saturday, June 23, 2012

With the advent of color photography, the erotic black-and-white nude study has become a much rarer thing. Playboy used to have one or two black-and-white pictures with every pictorial in the 70s and 80s, but not anymore. Playboy tweeted a link to this remarkable grayscale picture of Kelly Brook on the beach wearing pearls and nothing else.

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Economic prospects improving in your state? Shhh... don't tell the people of your state about it. The Romney campaign is attempting to muzzle GOP governors so that they don't hear good economic news, and so that Romney can keep bashing the Obama administration (you know, the Presidential administration that saved the world from global depression, a place that the GOP Congress led by John Boehner and Eric Cantor want to take us back to?)

"A Romney spokesperson didn’t deny the story, saying only that Romney frequently praises governors “for their ability to overcome the job-stifling policies of the Obama administration. That’s a new twist on the Romney camp’s argument that the recovery has only proceeded in spite of Obama’s policies, and only underscores the difficulty for Romney here — i.e., acknowledging the recovery where it’s happening while claiming Obama gets negative credit for it. It also highlights just how tightly Romney’s fortunes are dependent on us seeing the worst economic news possible for the next five months."

Don't be deceived about public opinion on climate
change. The view of who believes what is being manipulated by skillful
skeptics, and the loudest voices of skepticism are unduly represented in
the blogosphere and news cycle. The imbalance is politically and
philosophically (and psychologically) rooted, as ably documented by
Chris Mooney in "The Republican Brain".

Question: Do you think climate change is occurring?

See that 38% on the Republican side that don't believe climate change is occurring? There are a lot of Tea Party members and FreeRepublic posters in that slice of the pie.

"Public opinion in the U.S. about anthropogenic climate change is also changing. This spring, four major universities released polls showing that a clear majority of American citizens now say that the world is warming and that the country should take action. Jon Krosnick, a professor of communications at Stanford University, conducted one of the polls. He found that 83 percent of Americans say they believe that the Earth has been warming. One significant factor, he suggests, is that Americans can finally see and feel climate change happening."

If this is progress, then one of the biggest steps backward we could take as a country would be electing Candidate Etch-a-Sketch, Mitt Romney.

The rumors are that the 'Entourage' movie
is in the writing stage. For all those of us who desire every chance to
experience the desirous Emmanuelle Chriqui, this is clearly good
news. Especially when Emm plays the seemingly-unaware-of-her-incredibleness Sloan.

The great Tolstoy tragic love story epic
is getting remade once again, with a release due this November, starring
Keira Knightley in the title role. Keira has proven she's adept with
period pieces, and she's also shown great talent in other great Russian
literary remakes, i.e., a relatively unsung "Dr. Zhivago" redo in which a
very young Keira played a very young Lara, and provided a stunningly
erotic love/nude scene that I first witnessed uncut and uncensored on regular cable
TV (might've been PBS). (A small collection of stills from that, if you're interested).

Now, in "Anna Karenina" she does have to demonstrate that she's the
equal of hotness to Sophie Marceau, who did an Anna K movie in the last decade.
Unfortunately, the movie was a dud and didn't do justice to Sophie's
intrinsic hotness factor.

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Great pictures of Antarctica's stunningly unique Mount Erebus, including its active lava lake. These are great partly because this is obviously a place that the total vast majority of the citizens of the world are unlikely to ever visit in person.

Articles out today that Michael Phelps has an ambitious program planned for the U.S. Olympic Trials. The linked article also indicates that it's possible that Phelps might drop the 100 freestyle. I don't think he will, because he only has to finish 6th to be on the relay, at least as an alternate, and that's probably a medal. I think it's likely that he won't swim the 200 backstroke, ultimately. I also think that he might have trouble making the final in the 400 IM, let alone qualifying by finishing first or second, given his reported training laxity. 200 fly is a lock, but the 100 fly, given his penchant for coming back late, is not a lock. 200 IM is probably another lock, I don't see anyone touching him or Lochte in that. 200 free also a relay spot, and he's still one of the best.

So I expect him to qualify in the 200 Fly, IM, and Free, question marks in the 400 IM and 200 back, and likely on the relay in the 100 Free.

Athletic and lovely Chloe Miranda, cyber girl, former track star, and even a B-movie starlet now (search "Zombie Killers") shows how to wear a napkin as a top. And the results are immensely appealing. And her lower abs are TIGHT. I like that in a woman.

"On the broader issue of ensuring that fish stocks are actually
sustainable, Gjerskov said that member states had “embraced the concept”
of maximum sustainable yield (MSY).

Gjerskov said that the council had committed to bringing
catches down to MSY limits by 2015 “where possible” and by 2020 “at the
latest”. Richartz argues that this gives fisheries managers a free hand
to "set the quotas higher than the scientific advice” for the next
decade. Under existing international commitments, fish stocks in Europe
should be fished at no more than MSY by 2015."

I've always thought this would be possible -- windows that darken on command. I also always thought that would be GREAT for cars, so you could just simply darken the windows while parked on a hot day and keep the car interior from heating up into the stifling range. It would probably also save a bit of gas, because the AC wouldn't have to be cranked to cool off the superheated interior when starting up and heading out.

"Dynamically tinting architectural glass will substantially enhance
building energy efficiency and occupant comfort. We have been carefully
evaluating the landscape for the right technology that is ready for
scale and wide spread adoption," said Scott Thomsen, Guardian Glass
Group president.

It will likely be another hot summer in Japan (after all, the May we just had was the 2nd warmest globally ever), so the Japanese prime minister will probably let a couple of nuclear reactors get restarted to have enough power for air-conditioning. I imagine after the Japanese public gets moderately comfortable with this reality, a few more will get restarted too.

At the end of 2011, I posted 10 "safe" predictions for 2012. Halfway through the year, I'm conducting an evaluation of my predictions. Several of them are still "to be determined".

1. Andy Murray will win a Grand Slam (tennis) title. TBD -- but his injuries are making it less likely.

2. Khloe Kardashian will get pregnant. TBD -- but Kim's new boyfriend Kanye West is ready for baby-making. I bet. Hopefully Khloe and Lamar will conceive.

3. Barack Obama will be re-elected President. TBD -- Etch-a-Sketch candidate Mitt Romney is doing better than expected, and the Republican zillionaires are gearing up the money machine, but the Electoral College is still in Barack's favor, and the immigration move yesterday was brilliant, helping his prospects in Florida and firming up California.

4.
There will be a "reverse Climategate" with emails from climate change
skeptics, showing how they conspire together to distribute the same
tired talking points. YES -- even though it wasn't quite as expected, the correspondence that Peter Gleick acquired hurt the Heartland Institute, and then they over-reacted with the Unabomber billboard.

5. At some point in the year, the Dow Jones will go below 10,000. TBD -- hope I'm wrong on this one, because it would hurt #3, but with Spain and Greece so iffy on going broke, a true European monetary crisis could still make this happen.

6. The Washington Wizards will make the NBA Playoffs. NO - maybe next year.

7. The year's biggest movie will be "The Hobbit". TBD -- but probably will end up wrong, because I didn't anticipate "The Avengers" being so huge. And "The Dark Knight Rises" will probably also be big.

8. Kepler will find an exoplanet with near-perfect conditions for Earth-like life. TBD, but I might be able to claim a provisional YES on this one. See my previous post today.

9. Another famous celebrity will pose nude for Playboy (wow, like that's a stretch). I could say YES because of Jenny McCarthy. She's borderline famous. And Lindsay Lohan was in the January issue, but I knew that was going to happen when I wrote the prediction. There's still time for more nudity.

10. I'll have more than 100 followers on Twitter. TBD -- I've been hovering around 80. Tell your friends.

I've always wondered while watching baseball on TV how the announcers can determine whether a pitch is a curve, slider, sinker, cutter, etc. Now, I can tell the difference between a fastball, change-up, or straight curve, but the other ones are more subtle. So finally being frustrated by this, I figured that the Web was wide enough to have a guide to recognizing pitches. And I was right. So here's my public service in the sports department:

Up until recently, one of the great uncertainties in evaluating whether or not we are alone or not in the Universe has been how many habitable planets there are. Now, I was of the personal opinion, unfounded on any data, that the Universe is so vast, with so many galaxies and stars ("billions and billions") that somewhere else in this multitude of opportunities there has to be at least one more place with at least some algae and amoebas.

But the recent results from Kepler are changing the odds in the scientific sense, data-wise. Kepler's data is indicating that a lot of stars have planets, and a lot of these planets fall in the category of "Earth-like". Which pushes the odds toward the higher likelihood of life of some kind existing on some of them. Intelligent life? Well, that's probably much more rare, of course, but the Universe is a big place with lots and lots and lots ... and lots of stars.

"The message we’ve been getting from the planet hunting community is
loud and clear, and that message is that all stars have planets," said
Shostak. Since life is potentially everywhere, he would like to focus
more of the institute’s attention on the dense center of our galaxy.
"Now that we know that potentially habitable planets can form around
virtually any kind of star, it’s important to focus our attention on
star-rich areas"

Even though I promised I'd buy tickets, the luminous British pop star Cheryl (formerly known as Cheryl Cole and before she got married to the dumber-than-dirt but still a fine defensive midfielder Ashley Cole, Cheryl Tweedy) has decided not to try and make it big in the States. So she won't be touring here and apparently won't be on any television shows.

DARN. I repeat, darn darn darn. So I guess I'll just have be content (if that's possible) with videos and her highly frequent appearances in the Daily Mail, like this one from today.

"But this pattern of lying and not acknowledging it even when confronted directly has persisted and has led me to look for other sources of Romney’s behavior, and of his clear comfort with continuing it. I think much of this comfort stems from his Mormon faith.

I found myself discussing this situation with several colleagues and we agreed that Romney doesn’t lie. Let me repeat: Mitt Romney doesn’t lie. He is telling the truth as he sees it — and truth it is, facts notwithstanding. This is not simply a case of Hamlet arguing about point of view, saying, “for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” This is about a conflict between evidence and faith. There is a long tradition in the Mormon belief system where evidence takes second place to faith.

This unwavering faith is central to Romney’s comfort deflecting any examples that the press might bring up of his lying. Further it allows him to repeat lies again and again — both personally and in political advertising — because to him they are not lies at all. I’m reminded of that old epigram from the 1960s that said “My mind is made up; don’t confuse me with the facts.”

That may be all good and well in many offices, but it’s not so good in the Oval Office."

The more and more I read about Mitt Romney, the more I'm convinced he's just like Greg Stillson of Stephen King's The Dead Zone. Do we REALLY want to give this flake a chance to be POTUS?

This well-written article from Space.com describes the truly high stakes for NASA when the Mars Science Laboratory makes its landing attempt on August 6. There's a lot (repeat, a LOT) riding on this one. The landing sequence, shown in the video, is frighteningly complex. And remember how much this baby cost. Cover your eyes and peek through your fingers!

Now, nuclear power is not entirely without environmental impact; many plants use manmade reservoirs for cooling water (a problem cited in an earlier post). But these big reservoirs built for hydroelectric generation are screwing up some really great natural environments. There are continuing protests about the Patagonian dam projects, and now I read about this project, which imperils Africa's unique Lake Turkana. It goes back to the original problem we have on this world, too many people needing too much power. And with drastic tipping points looming, the real solutions are just as drastic.

I watched the French Open women's final; it was closer than the final score indicated. Errani had several opportunities to make it really interesting, and she provided a couple of drop shots that made Maria work a lot more than I think she expected or wanted to. But despite some double faults at bad places, Sharapova started strong and stayed more consistent. I don't know why I empathized so much with a multimillionaire gorgeous blonde Russian, but you could sense in her determination to get back to Grand Slam finals, and then finally win one again, that she's more than just a pretty face and athletic body; she wants to be a champion, too.

And that I find admirable. As well as the lovely rest of her.

And may I say, after the match was over, when she was bending over to put her equipment in her bag and clearly you could see she was wearing lacy red underthings under that LBTD (little black tennis dress) -- I'm sure that appealed to the French men in the audience. Image-searching with 'Sharapova' and 'French Open' will certainly provide some examples. I know, trust me.

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

A bit weird to see pictures of the delectable Julianne and to be somewhat turned off by them. I hope that's an aberration. Even the cover shot isn't that great. But the slit black sheath dress (below) -- THAT gets me back to normal in a hurry. (Is it a coincidence that it says "free SCORE" by her head?)

Not much I can add to this, because it so well summarizes the frustration that regular scientists have with the skeptical cabal that glamorizes, accentuates, and exploits the common and vital disagreements that occur in the scientific process. Science is a way of characterizing the truth -- it has a blobby shape, and to refine it to spherical perfection is not an easy thing to do. There will always be bumps, deviations from the idealized unreachable perfection of truth, because we characterize it imperfectly and with a limited viewpoint that cannot and will not exclusively occupy all perspectives.

So... we should soldier on, calling the skeptics on their misleading tactics, while at the same time trying to sympathize with their victims, the conservatives and Tea Party members and mainline Republicans that are unable to think beyond what they are told is true, and what they therefore believe to be true. It is a sad fact that they accept what skeptics tell them is true -- even though it can be shown to be demonstrably false easily -- because of what their mind and traditions and upbringing require them to know is true. And thus do the lies of the Moranoes and the Wattses continue to mislead and cause the gullible to misthink.

"The IPCC suite of scenarios provide ... a bit too rosy of a
picture," says Reilly. "Our study shows that without action, there is
virtually no chance that we won't enter very dangerous territory." Even moderate action isn't likely to help.

Follow-up work by these same researchers published this year in MIT's annual Energy and Climate Outlook
found that if countries achieve the emission cuts they promised at
international climate negotiations, the global temperature would still
increase by over 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit), with a
significant chance of a 5 degree Celsius rise by century's end."

This is actually quite interesting -- showing the costs of several different scenarios for Japan's economic trajectory with different percentages of energy-generating technologies. What's REALLY interesting is the hit that their GDP would take if they try to go totally nuke-free. That'll leave a mark if it happens.

"But many consider an over-reliance on renewables to be expensive and
unrealistic. The no-nuclear scenario could reduce the country’s gross
domestic product by up to ¥31 trillion (US $396 billion) per year,
according to the committee. Some local government officials, including
Hashimoto, have begun to soften their position on nuclear energy in a
bid to protect jobs, and two reactors in Fukui prefecture look set to be
restarted."

So, Maria is through, and so is Kvitova. I imagine that Petra is the last person left that Maria wanted to see across the net. It's a somewhat classic pattern that she's played well to get this far, a pattern she's sustained since the French Open last year -- can she close the deal now? What's the ova-unda on this match? (I apologize - had to.)

Use it wherever you can; remind Republicans that this guy has no spine, no principles, no center, and no guidance except the phrase "do whatever you have to do, and say whatever you have to say, to get elected".

If it weren't for the power boats with their slashing propellers, being a manatee would almost be the dream life of an animal. Think about it: they live in warm clear tropical waters; they pretty much eat all the time; being fat is not a problem for them; when they aren't eating they're probably just floating semi-weightless napping; and they don't spend much time worrying about mating.

Thermoelectric power plants supply more than 90 percent of electricity
in the United States and account for 40 percent of the nation's
freshwater usage, says the study published in the journal Nature
Climate Change.

In Europe, such plants supply three-quarters of the electricity and account for about half of the freshwater use.

Coal,
nuclear and gas plants turn large amounts of water into steam to spin a
turbine. They also rely on water at consistent temperatures to cool
the turbines and any spike in river water temperatures can affect a
plant's operation.

Disruptions to power supplies were already occurring, the authors noted.

During
warm, dry summers in 2003, 2006 and 2009 several power plants in
Europe cut production because of restricted availability of cooling
water, driving up power prices.

A similar event
in 2007-2008 in the United States caused several power plants to reduce
production, or shut down for several days because of a lack of water
for cooling and environmental restrictions on warm water discharges
back into rivers, the study said.

But there are a few things missing:"First, they don’t have instruments. There are no cameras, spectrographs or other instruments that a space telescope typically needs. Second, they don’t have a program, a mission or a staff behind them. They’re just hardware."

Where have we heard that before? Oh yeah, the ESA's Sentinel program. They can get the instrumented Earth observing satellites to the launch pad, but they don't have the money to run them in orbit.

How stupid is this state of affairs? NASA will work it out in a decade or so, and there isn't a pressing national/international interest to get these scopes launched in a hurry. But with the loss of Envisat still hurting, ESA needs to get the Sentinel series into space. Now.

If it isn't broken at this year's Olympics or in the run-up to them via national trials (the best chance), the world record for the men's high jump could reach the two decade mark in 2013. Over the past 12 years, no one has been closer than two inches to Javier Sotomayor's record.

It is possible that the limits of human capability to surmount the power of gravity are near their limit in this event.

No, this isn't about the odds that the long and blonde Russian will show up wearing a cute and skimpy maid's outfit.

Who's left? Next up for her was an unseeded player (Zakopalova); she was stretched to three sets via a tiebreaker, but handled the third well. Next up is 23rd seed Kanepi. Lurking ahead, unfortunately, is Kvitova; she waxed her fourth round opponent, an unseeded American with the All-American name of Lepchenko. On the other side of the draw is Azarenka-slayer Cibulkova (15), Stosur (6), Errani (21), and Kerber (10). Not bad, but with Kvitova a potential opponent if she gets past Kanepi, I'd currently put her chances of winning it all at around 25%.

After seeing these images, the researchers took the opportunity to compile further data on the rabbit by asking other researchers in Sumatra if they had ever seen the animal. The only positive responses came from scientists working in Kerinci Seblat N.P. In a paper published online last week in the journal Oryx, the researchers conclude that these two Sumatran parks are probably the last strongholds of the rare species.

If we aren't constantly amazed that we have a working robot on Mars leaving tracks like the ones below, then we aren't amazed enough. Hopefully in August we'll have a new working Mars track-maker (and also a remarkable laboratory pushing the limits of what robots can do).

The treaty's Secretariat considers the addition of black carbon, or soot, to be breaking new ground in air pollution policy.
“For the first time, we have an international agreement that acknowledges the link between air pollution and climat e change,” European Commissioner for the Environment Janez Potocnik said in a May 7 statement.

“By agreeing to regulate one of the contributors to climate chang e, 'Black Carbon,’ we will see positive impacts at both local and international levels.”

Black carbon is composed of fine particles produced from the incomplete combustion of diese l fuel, wood, crop waste and other biomass, oil, refuse, and in some cases coal. Evidence indicates that black carbon contributes to climat e change by warming the atmosphere and by darkening the surface of snow and ice, speeding melting.

However, parties did not commit to specific reductions of black carbon.

Saturday, June 2, 2012

News article about improved zeolites (basically, minerals with holes in them) that could improve carbon capture technology. This is important because despite all our important efforts to implement other sources (renewables, and of course my favorite, nuclear), we're going to be stuck with CO2 emissions for quite awhile. So if better technology can make CC more acceptable and more widely used, then go for it, energy producers.

By the way, the reason this is important is that it improves the efficiency of CC because it reduces the amount of energy lost during the CC process.

... researchers found that commonly used industrial minerals called zeolites could significantly improve the energy efficiency of "carbon capture" technology.

"It looks like we can beat the current state-of-the-art technology by
about 30 percent, and not just with one or two zeolites," said study
co-author Michael Deem, Rice's John W. Cox Professor of Bioengineering
and professor of physics and astronomy.

"Our analysis showed that dozens of zeolites are more efficient than the amine ab-sorbents currently used for CO2 capture."

I have been fortunate enough to see a daytime fireball once, while driving on a bright afternoon near Baltimore. But a lot of people haven't. The link below is to a video featured at Discover Mag online that caught the recent daytime-visible bolide over Californey, of which some pieces have been found, and which has also turned out to be a carbonaceous chondrite. All very exciting stuff. (The accompanying music is a bit cheesy, though, even if it is reggae-ish).

There have only been a couple of articles about the Australian hockey stick, which is a definite poke-in-the-eye to the climate warming skeptical factory that keeps churning out articles disparaging what is now a paper now 14 years in the past. (But why should they change their ill-begotten tactics now?)

But maybe they'll have to, ultimately. Because if a pretty-much-independent hockey stick could be found, that would make all the criticisms of the original ring more hollow than they already do. And that's the case with this one, I think. Now, the critical "hockey stick" figure is Figure 4. The two representations I've seen have not included the caption, which I think has critical information. So that's what I got. I don't subscribe to the journal, I went to the library and downloaded the PDF, mailed it to myself, and then copied the figure out of it.

One key thing to note is that the interesting peak around 1300 isn't as reliable as other periods. But the oft-described pattern is here; a bit warmer from 1200-1600, then a bit cooler from 1600-1900, and then the 20th century warming -- caused by rapid industrialization and increased emissions of GHGs (you know what that means).

And I think the deep "valley", post-1800, has to be "eighteen hunderd and froze ta death", i.e., the year without a summer, caused by the eruption of Mount Tambora.

Have you heard about the hologram lingerie model? Truly the next-generation in advertising:

Now, if we can order these custom-made (for example, a Luisana Lopilato lingerie hologram or a Kelly Brook lingerie hologram or a definite bestseller, a Miranda Kerr lingerie hologram), I think it'll be a real moneymaker.

OK, the difference between 398 and 400 is not that big. It's only 2 ppm. (If you haven't gotten the gist yet, I'm talking about atmospheric CO2 concentrations). But perhaps, in the global public mind, the difference will be significant and noticeable. We can only hope. Now, realize that officially (i.e., Keeling curve officially) we're not at 400 yet -- just some samples taken in the Arctic. But we're getting there, we're close, and that's a line that we're all going to cross, together.

So far, only the Arctic has reached that 400 level, but the rest of the world will follow soon. "The fact that it's 400 is significant," said Jim Butler, global
monitoring director at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration's Earth System Research Lab in Boulder, Colo. "It's just a
reminder to everybody that we haven't fixed this and we're still in
trouble."

The Arctic is the leading indicator in global warming, both in carbon
dioxide in the air and effects, said Pieter Tans, a senior NOAA
scientist. "This is the first time the entire Arctic is that high," he said. Tans called reaching the 400 number "depressing," and Butler said it was "a troubling milestone."

Now, I wonder if Climate Depot had anything to say about this? Well, he has a link to an article from Steven Goddard. Who has no credentials evident anywhere to talk about anything related to climate. Now, I've studied climate and environmental impacts as part of my job as a nuclear energy consultant. I don't claim to be an expert, just someone who attempts to understand. But I don't know anything about Goddard, nor does Goddard reveal anything about himself.

But the thing is, Goddard doesn't question the number, because the number is real. All he does is question the rate at which we got to the number.

Is that really a major concern? The number is going to keep going up until we take MAJOR, global-economy-changing steps to change that trajectory significantly.